


Running On Empty

by rockhoochie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brief Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockhoochie/pseuds/rockhoochie
Summary: Grief is just love waiting to find its way home.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/You
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	Running On Empty

**Author's Note:**

> My thank you/goodbye/love letter to Dean Winchester. Thank you so much to my amazing beta Lou (there_must_be_a_lock), the Slack Squad, and everyone reading!

I'd failed spectacularly at everything. 

If you were to ask anyone from my old life (the ones who are still breathing, anyway) if I had amounted to anything, they’d likely just shrug and change the subject. I never really seemed to get anything ‘right’ - career, marriage, mortgages, sham friendships with the sham neighborhood women… I did it, but never felt fulfilled. None of it felt right. Something was always missing. The harder I would try, the louder a little voice inside of me would poke and prod: _why bother? You’re never going to get it right. You don’t deserve to get it right. The only thing you get right is being wrong. If you’re not gonna give up, at least get yourself fucked up…_

Emptiness hurts. There's always a constant hunger for something, a demand of "I just want to fucking feel _good._ " But the ache screams - it wants a quick meal and it wants it now. So it starts with an extra pill. A stop at the bar for a surreptitious shot or two on my way to the ladies room. A shot to wash down pills I couldn’t get from a doctor, another to cut the bite of the bitter powder dripping down my throat.

I kept hoping for something to change, kept praying for something to give.

Eventually it wore away at me, paring me down to my core until there was barely anything left.

And then one night, when the moon was full, I came home to find my cheating bastard of a husband in our bed with his lying bitch of a mistress. I’d just stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the corpses that soaked and stained my white, Egyptian cotton, 1500-thread count sheets a deep shade of red.

Their hearts had been ripped clean out.

And I laughed.

Then the two FBI agents I’d seen at the coffee shop earlier had busted through the door and shot the Werewolf right as it was charging me.

Later (days, weeks… who’s to say; time both stood still and flew by) I got my hands on a Beretta 92FS and moved into an underground bunker in the middle of Kansas. I’d found something I was good at. With people who appreciated what I brought to the table, and didn’t expect me to become something I wasn’t. Saving people, hunting things - it felt right, like I was supposed to be here, in this fight with them. 

In a really fucked up way, becoming a hunter was like a rebirth. Baptism by blood. Everything I thought I knew, or cursed myself for not figuring out - it was all so insignificant. None of it mattered. And it never would again. It was my fresh start, my clean slate. 

It’s how I learned what love is.

* * *

_When my eyes flutter open, all I see is Dean unwrapping a bandage from my calf. I gasp a little when he slowly peels off the last bit of gauze that’s stuck itself to a wound._

_“There she is,” he drawls. “Had us worried for awhile.” He tosses the bandage aside and reaches for a steaming metal bowl._

_My tongue feels like it’s pasted to the roof of my mouth. “Shit. How long’ve I been out?” I mumble._

_“‘Bout eighteen hours.” Dean wrings water from a washcloth. “All right, deep breath - gotta clean this up.”_

_I inhale and try to hold it, but the second the hot cloth touches me I hiss out a curse. He’s being gentle but it stings like a motherfucker._

_Then I start to remember what happened, and everything - especially my ego - starts to hurt._

_I grit my teeth and try not to whimper while Dean finishes up and wraps a fresh bandage around my leg. The pain from the Wraith’s gash is searing. There’s a cut on my lip, my head is pounding, and every single muscle in my body strains like a muffled scream._

_“Sorry ” I manage._

_He stands up with a scoff. “What the hell for?"_

For fucking up. For jumping the gun. For thinking that I was on par with you and your brother. For thinking I could I actually pull this off.. _. I want to answer, but all that comes out is a groan._

_"Hey, shit happens, alright? You kicked ass. Everything's good, the evil son of a bitch is dead, and that--" He points to my leg. "--is gonna be one hell of a battle scar. Now, I'm gonna help you sit up, okay?”_

_He slides one arm behind my back and the other beneath my thighs. My head lolls and bumps his chest, and I keep it there as he sits me upright._

_He’s warm and he smells nice. It makes me sleepy again._

_After carefully propping a couple of pillows behind my neck and back, he hands me a bottle of water. I take it gratefully and gulp half of it in one go._

_“You hungry?” he asks._

_I shake my head. I know I should probably eat, but the thought of the effort of chewing makes my eyes heavy. And my bladder is screaming - it’s going to take what little energy I have to solve that problem._

_“All right, get some more rest but then you’re eating something. In the meantime…” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out two white pills, “you get the good drugs.”_

_I swallow them down, one at a time, emptying the bottle of water. “Fuck. Dean, I gotta get up.”_

_“Nuh-uh, sweetheart, you’re not goin -”_

_I feel myself flush. "No, I_ need _to get up…" I insist, glancing at my waist._

_"Oh. Right. Got it. Just take it slow."_

_I gradually twist at the waist and slide my legs off the bed. Dean holds out both hands to help me stand up, then tucks me beneath his arm as we inch down the hallway. I’m filled with too much pain and urgency to think about the fact that a Winchester is helping me to the bathroom. How is he so.._ ** _._** okay _with this? Isn't this what old people do?_

_Then again, considering a hunter’s lifespan, we're probably right on the cusp of geriatric._

_“Times like this’s when the penis envy gets really intense,” I sigh._

_Dean lets out a quiet chuckle. “I’ll bet. You’d have an even bigger dick than me."_

_I make a mental note to slug him (when I’m strong enough) for making me laugh._

* * *

I’ve done this dance so many times I should get a Kubler-Ross award for Best Performance. In fact, I've heard it and cried over it - only to have the script flipped - so many times that I just laugh in Sam's face when he tells me. 

I tell him to fuck off.

He'll have to do better than that, playing it off like it was some stupid accident. I mean, who leaves a spike of rebar poking out of a wooden beam? Sounds like something a redneck would use as a bottle opener.

Sam looks awful, and I don’t want to see his face right now. I turn back to the fruit I've been cutting. 

"You look tired, you should get some sleep," I say, staring at the blade of the knife as I slice melon in half. I'll do the pineapple next, and I think there's some berries… “Have you eaten? I can make you some breakfast…"

Sam just stands there behind me, breathing, and clears his throat. I wish he'd go away.

Miracle whines. I don't really want to deal with him either, so I keep up my cutting and prattling. "Oh, if you go for a run later, can you take Miracle along? He could use a good workout." 

Sam sniffles and clears his throat again. It makes me nauseous. Why does he always have to clear his throat? 

My heart is thudding in my chest. Dammit - all of these melon chunks are different sizes. And all of this silence is unsettling. I'm starting to get angry.

"There’s, um... there’s clean towels.. .towels in, ah -- the laundry room." It's really hard to string a sentence together, and with the way my eyes are welling up, you’d think I'd been chopping onions instead of cantaloupe. "And when you see D-...your brother…tell him to..." The last words fade out because I can’t seem to get the breath behind them..

Sam gently places a hand on my shoulder. "Put the knife down."

I drop the handle and turn around. I've had to face a lot of horrible things in my life - sights that have branded themselves into my darkest memories - but none of it compares to how haunting Sam looks right now. His eyes are dull and rimmed in red, and it looks garish against his pale skin. For all his height and build he looks so small - shoulders hunched, muscles slack, hair stringy with a section matted against his forehead. It’s as if something reached into him and ripped away a fundamental piece of him. It's excruciating. 

He’s not right. None of this is right, and I’m scared.

Sam grasps me by the shoulder and pulls me into him, long arms ensnaring me in navy blue canvas, cradling the back of my head as I press my face hard against his sternum. 

My heart tries to catch itself on a breath before it sinks, its weight in truth pulling me inward. I know my world is collapsing, same as I know that if not for Sam holding me upright, I'd shatter to pieces.

* * *

_Hunting is never sunshine and lollipops, but this one was way south of horrific._

_It's the middle of the night. We've been back since late afternoon and I'm still shaking. I tried, but I couldn’t sleep. Whiskey doesn't help, and the last of it is gone anyway. And if given the opportunity, I'd do some questionable things for a joint right now, or a hit of something...anything to shave the edges off the pictures flipping through my head._

_“Hey sweethe-"_

_I jump from my seat, my Beretta in hand as I kick my chair to the side and spin around. Dean is staring at the barrel of my gun with his hands up. “Whoa, easy tiger.”_

_“Jesus Christ…" I click the safety on my gun and set it back down. Dean picks up the chair and turns it upright, and I immediately slump back into it. He takes the one opposite me and sets a bottle down. "Sorry, I… that hunt was just…_

_"Yeah, I know.”_

_I reach for the bottle and take a long pull. It may not help, but it won't make it worse…_

_Unless it does._

_I shudder as the booze burns down my throat. Whatever it is, it’s dry and biting. “Ugh, what the hell_ is _this?” I slide it back to him._

_“The finest, cheapest rye whiskey in existence,” he smirks, raising the bottle to his lips. Dean has ridiculously perfect lips. They're so full, just the right shape, just the right shade of pink rose-red. The muscles in his throat flex as he swallows and my thighs tighten as his tongue peeks out from between his teeth._

_He heaves a heavy sigh and runs a finger over the carved initials on the table - a thick, meaty finger that I suddenly have the urge to feel between my teeth, on my tongue, sliding between my legs and popping the button of my jeans with a flick of his thumb..._

_Every hunter is a bit twisted in the head, but why in the ever-living fuck am I feeling like this right now? A minute ago, all the excess adrenaline was making my guts roil. Now I’m sitting here, looking at Dean like he’s the grand prize in a Midwestern meat raffle._

_Dean catches my gaze and raises an eyebrow. I quickly look away, praying he can’t read my mind and sparing him the agony of taking a closer look at me. Between the lack of sleep, hours of alcohol abuse, and my sudden urge to strip naked and beg him to take me right here in the library, I must look like wild-eyed hell._

_The soft clink of his car keys chime as he twirls them around his finger. “C’mon. Let’s get some air.”_

* * *

Sam never asked for my help with the pyre.

Which was fine, because I couldn't bring myself to watch Dean burn.

I've been in our bed for hours. It's a quiet and potent form of torture - laying here, curled on my side with my arms tight around his pillow, breathing in his shadow - but I can't muster up the strength to do anything else.

There's a tapping on the door. 

After a moment the handle rattles.

"Hey, I'm coming in alright?" Sam says softly. He steps through the threshold, holding a small plate and a bottle of water.

Miracle hops on the bed and quietly settles into the curve of my body.

Sam sets the plate down - chunks of fruit, cubes of cheese, pieces of beef jerky. "You don't have to get up, but you gotta eat something. Please."

He's being so sweet, and it wrings my heart. I should thank him. I should be comforting him. I should be doing anything but laying here. But I'm so fucking tired.

He turns to leave, whistling for the dog to follow.

"No," I mutter, wrapping my arm around golden fur and nuzzling the top of Miracle’s head. "S'okay."

***

Miracle nuzzles me with his wet nose and wakes me. The sheets are all twisted and my clothes - the same ones I've been wearing since Sam came home - are cold and damp from sweat and cling to my skin. I must have been having a nightmare. Luckily I don't remember it.

I have no idea how long I’ve slept or what time it is. The plate Sam brought me is gone - even though everything tasted like ash, I'd managed to eat about half.

I need to get up. Change. Pee. Let the dog out. Cry. Scream. Cry again.

Why haven’t I cried?

I slide out of bed and strip down. One of Dean's t-shirts and flannels is draped over the desk chair. His clothes are huge on me but I've always loved wearing them. I slip the shirt over my head. It's so soft. He'd worn this one and I can still smell him on it - metal and his deodorant and gun oil and the sweet vanilla spice of my body wash. He'd always deny it, but I knew he wasn't all that bothered when he "accidentally" grabbed that bottle from time to time. 

Then I open the top drawer of his bureau and pull out those ridiculous hot dog pants. 

Should have burned him in just these and his bathrobe. 

Shouldn't I be feeling something by doing this? Where's the wrenching heartache, the fond remembrance, the inappropriate laughter?

I'm getting nothing. I'm just numb. 

Empty.

My trudge to the bathroom feels like a ten mile trek. By the time I've made it down the winding halls and up the stairs, I'm battle-weary.

Miracle scampers out to do his thing. The night is cool, and the sky is the clearest it's been in awhile. I look up and see Alpha Centauri twinkling, outshining its surrounding stars.

A soft wind breathes through the night, tickling my hair, and for a second, I find it comforting. Then I catch the lingering stench of gasoline and charred wood and I almost retch. Miracle comes to me, sits obediently at my feet, and cocks his head as if to ask me if I'm okay. I lower to sit on my haunches and rub his ears.

"How about you go hang out with Sam for awhile? Come on."

On the way through the library, I stop. In the center of all the carved names and initials, like an offering, are Dean's watch and his keys. 

I take the keys and head to the garage. 

* * *

_Dean twists the cap off another beer and hands it to me. We’re stretched out on Baby’s hood, leaning against the windshield, looking up at the night sky. The radio is tuned to an adult contemporary station that still thinks it’s 1987, and I feel so comfortable, so content it’s almost unsettling._

_“It’s that one there, the real bright one.” Dean points up at the sky. I lean over to follow the point of his finger and nod. We’ve never been this close to one another, at least not like this. Sure, we’re practically dance partners when we’re tag-teaming the monster-of-the-week, and shameless at playing bedside nurse to help stitch up those hard-to-reach gashes. But this is cozy. Serene and familiar. Both of us are fully clothed and it’s the most intimate experience I’ve ever had._

_“Actually,” he continues, “it’s two stars, its own system. They’re just spinning so close together you can’t tell from down here. And if I remember right I think there’s another one that’s part of it but you can’t - dammit, sorry.”_

_I realize I’m softly giggling at his enthusiasm._

_“No, no, it’s...I never knew that and, well, the last thing I’d ever peg you for is an astronomy buff,” I say. He’s showing me a side of himself I’ve never seen. It’s beautiful and endearing and I don’t know how to handle it._

_Dean chuckles and drops his chin to his chest. He does that when he feels self-conscious or when he’s invoking modesty… which is more often than I’d realized._

_“Hardly. Learned about it in a science class when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen. Got paired up as a ‘study-buddy’ with this cute, bookworm-type girl...wanted to make sure I could impress her. ”_

_“And did you?”_

_He shrugs and tips back a swallow of beer. “Dad shoved us off to the next town before I could find out.”_

_“Well, I may not be a bookworm, but I am pretty damn impressed.”_

_He smiles, and it’s stunning. Maybe I’m delusional, but it seems like he smiles more when we’re together. It lights this spark inside of me, in that place that I thought was dead and gone, buried under too much death and grief and blood. It’s dangerous, how he makes me feel. If I had any sense, I’d shut this down, let my brain tell my heart to fuck off. I’d remind myself that I can’t lose what I never had, that the cost is too high, that my heart is too hard._

_Instead, I grin in return, and let the moments play out the way they always do._

_The first moment is the stunning paradigm of every rom-com cliché in existence, where our eyes meet and my pulse starts racing and I start to think, "maybe..."_

_The moment that follows is the one where we both look away and pretend that we’re not falling for one another._

* * *

I kill the engine. There's no moon tonight, and the sky seems even clearer now, so many stars glinting and twinkling lightyears away. I pull a blanket from the backseat, wrap it around my shoulders, and climb onto the hood.

This feels wrong.

When Dean brought me here the first time, it was like he was sharing a secret. I remember the way his demeanor changed, how he'd slide the gearshift into park and just _exhaled_.

It wasn't anything like a breathtaking scenic view or a wood full of wonder. It was just flat ground. Miles of gravel and sky. It was pure peace.

We came here just to have a place that was at ground level, where we could watch the sun or moon rise, shine, or set. It was our place to breathe. To find shapes in clouds while we counted the stars. To confess our greatest sins - every dark thought we’d had and acted on, every lie we’d told and heart we’d broken. To fight or fuck it out in the backseat. To drown together in the guilt. To pull one another out with absolution.

Minutes -- maybe hours-- pass. I've lost myself in the darkness, swimming through constellations, searching.

But I can't find it.

The midnight breeze whispers against my cheek again. There's a chill in it - a quiet promise that winter hasn't forgotten, and that it's on it's way, and, from now on, my winters will be a little more dark. And I wonder if the ice encasing my heart will ever thaw, if the hollow inside of me will ever be filled again. 

Emptiness hurts.

I remember this feeling. I remember the things I would do to make this feeling go away. After all this time, it’s still so familiar.

I shudder and pull the blanket around me tighter. 

Everything aches. My eyes, my throat, my chest...they’re all so tight, pulled taut and singing with tension. I screw my eyes shut. I'm not ready to let go.

The emptiness churns and slithers through me -- a cold, barbed whisper that catches and tears at the last soft parts of my heart. 

It’s starting to destroy the places he’d fixed, as though his touch never had healed me, or his tears had never cleansed me. As though his kiss had never silenced that wicked voice inside my head.

_“Dean is gone. You will never see his smile again. Never feel his arms around you, never taste his lips again, or feel the beating of his heart or his tears on your skin. Dean is gone - he took that spark from you and snuffed it out. He left you with all that love that doesn’t have anywhere to go. Dean is gone. And this time, he’s not coming back…"_

My eyes snap open, like something slapped me back to life. And it’s right there, at my zenith, glowing and beaming the same way his eyes would when he looked into mine.

Then I notice Sam walking toward me, muttering something about it being cold. I slide off the hood to meet him.

And then it’s Jenga.

* * *

_“Dean._ Dean!! _” I'm practically chasing him down the winding halls to the library. Sam went straight to his room once we got back. Sam Winchester is wise._

_Dean slams his duffel bag on the floor and grips the edges of the wooden table. He’s seething - I’ve never seen him this angry._

_“Dean, listen, I -”_

_“What part of_ ‘stick to the plan’ _did you not understand?!” His eyes are wide, lips pursed and nostrils flared in a snarl._

_I glare at him. Fuck this. Fuck him. “I understood ‘the plan’ just fine. How about you tell me which part of_ ‘this plan is bullshit’ _you didn’t understand?!”_

_He rakes his fingers through his hair and marches to the bar cart, boots thudding like thunder. Liquor splashes to the floor when he rips the stopper from a crystal decanter._

_I keep pouring my anger out: “I saw an opportunity and I took it. And if you would’ve just gotten it through your thick skull, the problem would be solved and you’d have been home a day ago!" His jaw clenches as his shoulders tense, reining himself in, shoving and drinking down his feelings down the way he always does. He fills his glass for a third time and something in me snaps. "I swear, it’s like you don’t give a shit, or you have some fucked up death wish. The way you keep putting yourself on the line, letting everyone who cares about you go on thinking everything's fine until the fucking zero hour? It's fucking selfish! God dammit Dean, I give a shit. Your brother gives a shit, Cas gives a shit...it doesn't always have to be you, you don’t have to keep playing the fucking martyr!”_

_Silence hangs in the air, thick and throbbing with tension as I catch my breath. I've said too much._

_Minutes stretch while he tips back the last of his drink and I wait._

_Eventually, I laugh in spite of myself, at the way I keep expecting him to say something. And right when I give up and turn on my heels to leave, he grumbles something unintelligible. The only word I catch is “because ”. I whip back around._

_“Because what?” I snap._

_"I can't lose you," he mumbles to the floor. He finally turns to me, wipes a hand over his face and takes a deep breath. “It's my fucking job to watch out for the people I love. I’m the one who’s done things that are the stuff of nightmares, so I’m the one who’s gonna pay the piper - not Sam or Cas, or whoever-the-fuck else, and especially not you."_

_My heart has leapt to my throat, and I just stare at him as he inches towards me._

_"You know, sometimes I just want you to go. I wake up and pray that you skipped out and come to your goddamn senses. But then I see you and I can't—it's—.how I feel about you, how much I care about you...it's too much.” His hands come to rest on my shoulders with a firm grip, like he’s keeping me from falling. There’s a shine to eyes and he looks nervous, jaw muscles ticking and eyelashes blinking fast and I begin to realize he’s the one afraid of falling. “You're too much, too good for me. And I don’t even know where I get off thinking you’d ever... I can't give you the life you should have, and I got no idea how we -"_

_Every word he says resonates through me, finds its place in the fabric of my being and settles in. His voice, his face, the way he’s looking at me - it’s disarming and I can’t fight it anymore._

_"Shh…" I say, resting the tip of my finger on his lips, in the dip of his cupid's bow. "Shut up and kiss me?"_

_I’m taken aback by the way he gently presses his lips to mine, cupping his palm against my cheek. It's the most tender thing, the way he’s touching me like I'm made of spun glass —the way he kisses me, soft and sweet like a butterfly sipping nectar from my lips._

_"I love you," he whispers, so fiercely it seems to echo off the concrete walls._

* * *

It’s more of a desperate flail than a punch, but Sam takes it.

I feel crazy—literally insane. I don’t really even know what I’m saying, if what’s going on in my head is the same as what’s coming out of my mouth, and I’ve completely lost control.

I yell at Sam for lying to me, for staging such an elaborate production, for making me believe Dean is gone for good. I don't believe for a second that this is what he wanted. 

I scream that it's Sam’s fault. I pound my fists against him and ask how he could let such a stupid thing happen. He couldn't even pull off snuffing a random Vamp’s nest? This is what he gets for always needing his big brother to do the dirty work. How dare he shed tears when the reason Dean is dead is because he had to pull Sam’s lame ass out of the fire again? How dare he look Dean in the eye and tell him it was okay to leave us?

I blubber into the cotton of his shirt when he's had enough and pulls me against him. I insist we can make a deal. I'll summon...something. There's a crossroads about ten miles away, we can figure something out. He can talk to Rowena, she'd help, she'd understand; we have the Book of the Damned, there has to be a spell that can bring him back, or turn back time. We must have a spirit board...something, _anything,_ just so I can say goodbye.

Sam holds me tighter and lets me cry. He lets me drool and wipe my nose on his clothes while I apologize and beg for his forgiveness. And when the last of my tears fall, and my breathing finally steadies, he kisses the top of my head.

“Come on. Let’s go home.”

Sam guides me to the passenger door and eases me in, and straps my seatbelt on for me. I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window and stare down at the road.

I can’t remember ever feeling this exhausted.

* * *

_It’s been months and we're still in that can't-get-enough-of-you phase. We booked a hotel for a few days, just to give Sam a break from having to tolerate us._

_I’ve never felt like this before, with anyone. I don’t have to be anything I’m not for him. At first it threw me, the way he cared about me, loving the things about myself I’d spent years cursing and trying to carve out. He lights my darkness, dulls my pain, carries me when I can’t carry myself. For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to love and be loved._

_I'm straddling him while he’s still inside of me, half-hard._

_"What happened to 'guns blazin'?” I ask, looking down at him as I light a cigarette._

_Dean scoffs and takes the cigarette from me. I take the opportunity to pull myself off of him, secretly delighted at the way he whines when his cock slips out. I curl into his side, and lay my head on his chest, busying my fingers with tracing constellations of freckles and scars on his torso._

_"That’s just pillow talk, baby,” he sighs. “Pep talk for when the stakes are high, you know? Keeps the flame burning under my ass so I can get shit done.” He takes a drag, holds it a beat, then exhales. “Easier if I don’t see it coming. I mean, fuck, that entire year before I…" He deflates a little, trembling so slightly that if I didn't have my hand over his heart, I'd never notice. "You know, you spend all that time starin’ it down, trying to figure out how to outrun it or fight it, how to inflict the least amount of damage. Gimme the edge of a blade, barrel of a gun when I ain’t expecting it. Simple. No deals, no bullshit, no coming back."_

_He reaches over me to smash the cigarette out._

_It's so fucked up that we're playing this twisted version of "Would You Rather: Ways to Die Edition'' while we're lying here in post-coital stupor. It's also one of the many reasons we're so good together._

_He rolls on top of me, warm and tacky from sweat and kisses me. He tastes like tobacco and sex, and everything - life, death, the future, the past - it all dissolves back into the haze and heat we make together._

_“No ‘blaze of glory’ then, huh?” I hum._

_His lips move over that spot he found behind my ear while his knuckles drag along the slick seam of my cunt._

_“Fuck glory,” he mutters, pushing two thick fingers deep inside of me as he shifts and kisses his way down my stomach. His tongue flutters against my clit and I moan, lacing my fingers through his hair as I draw up my knees. He peers up at me, smirking. “Any luck, this is how I'll go out."_

* * *

It's a blur, arriving back at the bunker, walking the halls to our - _my_ room. I feel frozen as I stare at the foot of the bed.

"Can I get you anything?" Sam asks from the doorway. 

_Can you get me your brother back?_ "I - I don't know."

"Well just... let me know. Or I can come back, or even stay -"

"Sam," I whisper, crossing and locking my arms tight around myself. "Sam, I can't do this."

"Hey," he steps in front of me, tilting my chin up with a gentle nudge of a hooked finger. "Look at me. Yes you can."

"You don't understand, we—I'm—I can't do this alone."

Sam's hazel eyes soften with a gentle smile as he clutches my arms. "You don't have to. You _won't_ have to, I'm... _we_ are gonna figure it out, okay?” 

I nod, even though it’s too hard for me to believe him. 

Sam sighs and sits on the end of the bed. “Dean loved you. God, he loved you so much...it was kind of annoying. Not gonna lie, there were a couple of times I wondered if you’d put a spell on him.” 

We both huff a small laugh at that before he continues. “Look, if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that Dean wouldn’t give his heart out to just anyone. You made him a better person. Actually, no —you brought out the best in him, and finally let him know it was okay to be the person he was. He once told me that anyone who could rein his ass in as well as you did could move heaven and earth. So he knew—” Sam stops, taking a second to choke back a sob. “—he knew if anything happened to him, if he had to leave, that you would be okay. Dean, he...he did so much more than love you. He admired you. You made my brother so fucking happy, and you’ll never know how much that means to me. So whatever comes next, whatever you need, I'm here."

We're both crying as I slip beneath the covers. I clutch Dean’s pillow and something washes over me - some kind of serenity. Suddenly, somehow I know we’ll be okay.

Sam is about to flip the lights off when I stop him.

"There is something you can do...something you should know…"

* * *

_I shouldn’t, but I’m starting to feel a little guilty for sitting out of this hunt._

_“We got this, sweetheart,” Dean says, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. “And I’m sure you got chick stuff to do. Besides, Sammy’s been dying for some quality time with his big brother.”_

_Sam rolls his eyes but smiles._

_“‘Chick stuff’?” I giggle._

_“You know, like, bubble baths. Ice cream and rom-coms. Braiding Miracle’s fur.”_

_I stand on my tiptoes and drape my arms over his shoulders. “That does sound amazing. If only someone hadn’t finished off all of the Cherry Garcia before he fell asleep watching “Bridget Jones” the other night…”_

_Sam tries and fails to hold back a snicker, and Dean makes a quick face at him before leaning down to kiss me. “Well, maybe that bastard ran out and picked up a few more pints before someone woke up this afternoon.”_

_“I knew there was a reason I loved you.” We kiss one more time before he and Sam climb the iron staircase. “And hey mister,” I call out, “I know about the pie festival and you’d better be planning on bringing some back!”_

_Dean looks down from the banister and winks. “Someone’s had a sweet-tooth lately.”_

_The clang of the heavy door echoes through the bunker and he’s gone. The sound is jarring and I instinctually slide my hands over my stomach._

_I’d been waiting to tell him until I was one-hundred percent sure. I could wait a few more days._

_I glance down at Miracle. “We’ll just have to tell him when he comes home, won't we?.” He wags his tail with excitement and I lean down to scratch his ears. “Come on, let’s have some ice cream.” Miracle happily barks in reply and we make our way to the kitchen._

* * *

_**Eight Years Later** _

I'm on my way to the cleaners to pick up Dean's little league uniform when something cracks like thunder. Glass shatters and tires screech. Then, suddenly, it's quiet.

I’d always wondered how I’d handle my death. I'd gone from sometimes welcoming it to being sure I’d hate it - that I’d find the nearest celestial being and demand they put me back down. I wasn’t old enough to settle for having “had a good life,” or sick enough to count it as a blessing. I had shit to do. I had a son that needed me. 

So I wait to feel it. Brace myself for the anger and determination to rush through me. But it doesn’t come, and I begin to understand that those things simply don’t exist anymore, because they no longer serve a purpose. There isn’t room for them here - everything is already brimming with warmth and color and light, and that's all that matters.

I also recognize that on some level, I know that they’ll be okay.

I feel him before I hear him.

“There she is.”

I grin and turn around. 

It’s nighttime, and the sky glows with more constellations and galaxies and moons than I could ever dream of. I walk towards the Impala, where he’s already stretched out on the hood, with a beer in his hand and smile on his face. 

It's so good to see his smile again.

I lift myself up and settle beside him. 

Dean turns to me and runs a finger along my cheek. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says, softly against my lips before kissing me. 

I curl into him, and look up at the stars. There it is, two stars shining as one.

There’s a third star that's part of Alpha Centauri , but we just can’t see it from here.

**_The End_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I love hearing from you!


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